Wreaths Across America needs your help to reach their goal of community members placing a Christmas wreath on veteran graves in Tioga County, New York and in Bradford County.
Every time you help with wreath laying for veterans, you are also honoring their families and preparing a new generation to appreciate America’s freedoms.
On or before National Wreaths Across America Day planned for Saturday, Dec. 13, local organizers hope 2014 will be the year that a wreath can be placed on every single one of the graves.
“Don’t Say I Should Have. Say I Did,” is this year’s theme.
Veterans will lay wreaths at veteran memorials in Owego, Nichols, Candor, Spencer Van Etten, Waverly and The Valley.
Entrances to cemeteries can have one wreath donated by a church thanks to the initiative of its congregation. Church pastors are encouraged to communicate the wreath story within their worship service on Sundays Nov. 30 or Dec. 7, which is Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.
Graves of Fallen Heroes from all wars get wreaths from their Gold Star Mothers and Families or relatives. Veterans of all wars should get a wreath laid by a member of their family or a close friend.
But here’s where community help is needed. Some family members may be deceased or live out of the area. For them, you may get a wreath, go to the cemetery you are most familiar with, find the grave of a veteran and place an evergreen.
Graves of veterans are marked with an American flag, a flag holder, a veteran’s memorial plaque on the back side of the headstone, or if a grave stone is flat on the ground look for a veteran’s inscription of name and branch of service.
Each home in Tioga and The Valley/Bradford County is asked to buy or make an evergreen wreath for placement on a veteran’s grave in their preferred cemetery. Here’s why. The mission of Wreaths Across America is to REMEMBER the fallen that gave up their tomorrows with family and loved ones, so that we can enjoy our freedoms today. HONOR those who served, the men and women of the armed forces who put themselves in harm’s way to protect us. TEACH our children about the freedoms we enjoy each day, and the great cost at which they were purchased.
The Tioga County Veterans Memorial and Tioga County Union Memorial in the Courthouse Square will have wreaths placed by Gold Star Mothers and Families and Purple Heart Recipients supported by veterans from American Legion Post 401 and their Ladies Auxiliary and Sons of the American Legion, Chapter 480 Vietnam Veterans of America, Tioga County Marine Corps League, Glenn A. Warner Post 1371, Veterans of Foreign Wars and Ladies and Men’s Auxiliaries, Veterans of Modern Warfare of Iraq and Afghanistan and Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War.
American Legion Posts in Nichols, Candor, Spencer Van Etten, and Waverly and VFW Posts in Waverly and Sayre and Waverly Friends of the Cemetery will coordinate wreath laying and remembrance ceremonies.
Thousands of wreaths will be laid at Arlington National Cemetery at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 13, and 900 participating locations in every state, Puerto Rico and 24 cemeteries overseas where Tioga County Fallen Heroes have been buried since World War II.
Why wreaths during the holidays? Be in a cemetery in the presence of a Gold Star Mother and Family or the families of veterans who have passed. They just want to know all those sacrifices and lost holidays were not made in vain. Tioga County has 172 fallen heroes from all wars. Exact count is not known but an estimated 5,000 veterans are buried in our cemeteries.
Three videos explain Wreaths Across America to a friend who has never participated. Visit www.wreathsacrossamerica.org/evednts/blog. Hear why it matters from the founder, an American Gold Star Mother who lost her son, and from the personal stories of those who serve and sacrifice.
Local contact is Glenn A. Warner Post 1371 Veterans of Foreign Wars Memorial Chairman Jim Raftis, who can be contacted by email to jraftis2@stny.rr.com or by calling (607) 687-4229.
